The Law and Practice of the International Criminal Court

Some parts of this publication are open access, available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. Chapters 2, 4, 10, 47 and 49 are offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. The International Criminal Court is a controversial and important body within international law; one that is significantly growing in importance, particularly as other international criminal tribunals close down. After a decade of Court practice, this book takes stock of the activities of the International Criminal Court, identifying the key issues in need of re-thinking or potential reform. It provides a systematic and in-depth thematic account of the law and practice of the Court, including its changes context, the challenges it faces, and its overall contribution to international criminal law. The book is written by over forty leading practitioners and scholars from both inside and outside the Court. They provide an unparallelled insight into the Court as an institution, its jurisprudence, the impact of its activities, and its future development. The work addresses the ways in which the practice of the International Criminal Court has emerged, and identifies ways in which this practice could be refined or improved in future cases. The book is organised along six key themes: (i) the context of International Criminal Court investigations and prosecutions; (ii) the relationship of the Court to domestic jurisdictions; (iii) prosecutorial policy and practice; (iv) the applicable law; (v) fairness and expeditiousness of proceedings; and (vi) its impact and lessons learned. It shows the ways in which the Court has offered fresh perspectives on the theorization and conception of crimes, charges and individual criminal responsibility. It examines the procedural framework of the Court, including the functioning of different stages of proceedings. The Court's decisions have significant repercussions: on domestic law, criminal theory, and the law of other international courts and tribunals. In this context, the book assesses the extent to which specific approaches and assumptions, both positive and negative, regarding the potential impact of the Court are in need of re-thinking. This book will be essential reading for practitioners, scholars, and students of international criminal law.

1 - The International Criminal Court (ICC) and Double Standards of International Justice
2 - The ICC and the Politics of Peace and Justice
4 - The ICC and the AU
5 - How Much Money Does the ICC Need?
6 - The ICC and the ASP
7 - Jurisdiction
8 - Ad hoc Declarations of Acceptance of Jurisdiction: The Palestinian Situation under Scrutiny
9 - Self-Referrals as an Indication of the Inability of States to Cope with Non-State Actors
10 - Admissibility Challenges Before the ICC: From Quasi-Primacy to Qualified Deference?
11 - The ICC and its Relationship to Non-States Parties
12 - The Frog that Wanted to Be an Ox: The ICCs Approach to Immunities
13 - Putting Complementarity in its Place
14 - Investigative Management, Strategies, and Techniques of the ICCs OTP
15 - The Selection of Situations and Cases by the OTP of the ICC
16 - Selecting Situations and Cases
17 - Accountability of International Prosecutors
18 - Article 21 and the Hierarchy of Sources of Law before the ICC
19 - The Rome Statute and the Attempted Corseting of the Interpretative Judicial Function: Reflections on Sources of Law and Interpretative Technique
20 - Perpetration and Participation in Article 25(3)
21 - Co-Perpetration: German Dogmatik or German Invasion?
22 - Indirect Perpetration
23 - Forms of Accessorial Liability under Article 25(3)(b) and (c)
24 - The ICC and Common Purpose - What Contribution is Required under Article 25(3)(d)?
25 - Command Responsibility under Article 28 of the Rome Statute
26 - Rethinking the Mental Elements in the Jurisprudence of the ICC
27 - The ICCs First Encounter with the Crime of Genocide: The Case against Al Bashir
28 - Crimes against Humanity: A Better Policy on Policy
29 - Charging War Crimes: Policy and Prognosis from a Military Perspective
30 - The Characterization of Armed Conflict in the Jurisprudence of the ICC
31 - The Crime of Aggression
32 - La Lutte Continue: Investigating and Prosecuting Sexual Violence at the ICC
33 - Cumulative Charges and Cumulative Convictions
34 - The International Criminal Standard of Proof at the ICC - Beyond Reasonable Doubt or Beyond Reason?
35 - Confirmation of Charges
36 - Trial Procedures - with a Particular Focus on the Relationship between the Proceedings of the Pre-Trial and Trial Chambers
37 - Proportionate Sentencing at the ICC
38 - The Role of the Appeals Chamber
39 - A Stick to Hit the Accused With: The Legal Recharacterization of Facts under Regulation 55
40 - Disclosure Challenges at the ICC
41 - Sitting on Evidence: Systematic Failings in the ICC Disclosure Regime - Time for Reform
42 - The Roads to Freedom - Interim Release in the Practice of the ICC
43 - Testifying behind Bars - Detained ICC Witnesses and Human Rights Protection
44 - External Support and Internal Coordination - The ICC and the Protection of Witnesses
45 - Victim Participation Revisited - What the ICC is Learning about Itself
46 - The Rome Statutes Regime of Victim Redress: Challenges and Prospects
47 - The Deterrent Effect of the ICC on the Commission of International Crimes by Government Leaders
48 - The ICC and Capacity Building at the National Level
49 - Completion, Legacy, and Complementarity at the ICC
50 - A Look towards the Future - The ICC and Lessons Learnt

Carsten Stahn is Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice at Leiden University and Program Director of the Grotius Centre. He is the author of The Law and Practice of International Territorial Administration: Versailles to Iraq and Beyond. He has published articles on international criminal law and transitional justice in leading international journals (American Journal of International Law, European Journal of International Law, Journal of International Criminal Justice, Harvard International Law Journal), and edited several collections of essays in the field.